During the period 2019-2023, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine incurred consultancy costs exceeding €7million for reports categorised or designated as ‘not for external publication,” information provided to Carol Nolan TD has revealed.
When the years 2011-2018 are included, the cost of such consultancy reports rises to €12.2million.
The information was provided to Independent TD for Laois Offaly Carol Nolan who asked the Minister Charlie McConalogue the total number of consultancy reports commissioned or funded by his department that have been categorised or designated as not for external publication from 2011 to date and the total costs incurred on commissioning or funding these reports:
“I accept that the department is not always going to have the expertise necessary for some issues and that it must engage expertise elsewhere, but what is striking to me is the significant jump in number of such reports that have emerged from 2019-2013,” said Deputy Nolan.
“Prior to this point the average annual cost was in and around the €500k-€900k mark, with the department commissioning on average between 3-13 reports. Then from 2019 the number of reports marked not for external publication jumps into the high twenties with a concomitant rise in costs.”
“It is also not clear to me why there should be such a lack of transparency around these reports, and why the taxpayer, who is funding them, cannot have access to the research or results that have been found.”
“It is very easy to say that they involve sensitive information but unfortunately as they will never be published, we have no way of verifying that or indeed of assessing the quality of the recommendations made in any of these reports,” concluded Deputy Nolan.
The Department said that “it seeks to minimise the use of consultants and only engages consultancy firms when particular additional expertise is required for delivery of the services which support the business processes of the Department.
“Such services are used in areas where the Department does not have the necessary expertise or internal capacity to deliver the services and where it would not make practical, operational or economic sense to build up this capability within the Department.”
“A number of these engagements are necessary to satisfy auditing and EU regulatory requirements and where independent evaluation of projects is required. All contracts are negotiated with a view to achieving best value for money and keeping expenditure to a minimum.”